Unfortunately, in the US, simply not taking debt (minimally a credit card and/or car loans) means that you can be negatively affected in life. Most places won't report that you've been paying your electric bill or rent on time - they'll only report negatives if they hit a threshhold or if you, say, forget a final bill.
Which means that a responsible person, who simply lives within their means and pays bills on time, buying used cars and such, winds up with no credit history. This means that folks might deny an apartment or that you'll pay a higher interest rate on a car loan. You might not get a loan for housing until you build up credit.
Credit was an issue for women specifically at one time because most bills were in their spouse's name - and joint bank accounts were usually "owned" by the husband, so that history wasn't working towards the woman.
I'm not sure if medical debt still counts towards credit scores or not: All you used to need for negative marks was to have an accident and be poor. (I have an uncle that had bankruptcy because of it: He wound up with a 250,000 hospital bill. He only made 30k before and could no longer perform his job)
It is a really crappy system, and I truly wish it were geared more towards folks simply being responsible and living within their means. Or at least minimally, require more of the positives be reported (so a hospital bill will never be negative unless that hospital also reports that folks paid on time).
This is such a weird system; in the Netherlands you're just assumed to be a good debtor unless you've proven otherwise; only not paying debts is recorded, and it usually doesn't (or never?) affect your interest rate.
In the US, it seems that you're basically forced to live "an average life" if you want to get any decent credit score. Land of the free indeed.
Which means that a responsible person, who simply lives within their means and pays bills on time, buying used cars and such, winds up with no credit history. This means that folks might deny an apartment or that you'll pay a higher interest rate on a car loan. You might not get a loan for housing until you build up credit.
Credit was an issue for women specifically at one time because most bills were in their spouse's name - and joint bank accounts were usually "owned" by the husband, so that history wasn't working towards the woman.
I'm not sure if medical debt still counts towards credit scores or not: All you used to need for negative marks was to have an accident and be poor. (I have an uncle that had bankruptcy because of it: He wound up with a 250,000 hospital bill. He only made 30k before and could no longer perform his job)
It is a really crappy system, and I truly wish it were geared more towards folks simply being responsible and living within their means. Or at least minimally, require more of the positives be reported (so a hospital bill will never be negative unless that hospital also reports that folks paid on time).